Norman A. Bailey

The results of the US midterm elections appear to mean business as usual, particularly for Israel.

With all the multiple conflicts, large and small, raging throughout the world today, is it any wonder that a fundamental financial paradigm shift is taking place with no great amount of attention being paid to it? 

Israelis are anxious about the future of the US’s pro-Israel stance, but a US president’s foreign policy is largely unfettered by Congress.

In 1928 Bernard Baruch, the Warren Buffett of his time, sold his entire portfolio of stocks. He was ridiculed in the press and by the financial pundits. In 1929 the US stock market crashed.

Israel, for the first 50 years of its existence, was almost totally devoid of natural resources, with the exception of some potash exports from the Dead Sea area.

Putin has given Israel carte blanche to take military action against Iranian targets in Syria, and against Iran’s proxy Hezbollah, in Syria and Lebanon.

Pressured at home and abroad, the Iranian regime’s scope for action is severely limited.

Three recent events, each part of a long series of similar events, has led me to establish the Bailey Award for Comparative International Thuggery (BACT).

Due to their aggressive actions and threats, Russia and Turkey might justly be labelled the “Great Thug” and the “Little Thug.”

Despite Iranian claims that the F-16’s downing was a game changer, it served Israel as a pretext for important strategic gains.